My Network+ advice

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Hi guys,

I haven't actually posted on this forum, but I have read it in preparation for Network+ which I passed today. So, for anyone that's preparing, here's my advice...

I did A+ about 6 months ago. Network+ was harder to study for and get to grips with (you can't get 'hands on' experience the same way), but the exam itself was more straightforward. If you knew the facts & figures it wasn't too awkward.

There weren't really any ambiguous questions, there were no questions which said "choose all answers that apply" (which I absolutely hated in A+ software component), and there were quite a few obviously wrong answers which is always helpful in multiple choice.

I used the David Groth Network+ study book mainly. In retrospect it was pretty good at telling you want you needed to know and at what level. However, within that book is the actual structure of IP and TCP headers. I certainly wasn't tested on this, and didn't get the impression that you need to know the protocols at this level.Nonetheless, this book is good that it pretty much sticks to the syllabus and pretty much covers everything.

I also dipped into the Mike Meyers book. My main complaint with this book is that it is out of date. For example, there is no Thinnet or Thicknet on the syllabus. Also, I noticed particularly with A+ a few months ago, and to some extent with Network+ today, there's more questions on the more modern OS's i.e. Windows XP/2000/2003 server rather than Windows 98/ NT.

I also watched a few CBT nugget videos. Some of these are really good - particularly in explaining concepts such as the OSI 7 layer model. However, generally the videos were a bit slow paced, and went into too much detail. I didn't mind the detail as such, but I just wasn't tested at this level. For example, PPTP protocol. It's used within PPP for encryption / authentication in a VPN. That's it. Similarly with DHCP servers and DNS servers. You seem to know in a kind of 'one-brief-paragraph' level what these things do.

Also, I bought VMWare. Not cheap at around £120, but a real gem of a program. I've got 1GB of RAM and I'd say you need at least this to do anything practical networking-wise (after all you've got the host computer running, and then another two virtual machines running. When one of these is server software it is obviously going to be resource intensive). Anyway, I loaded quite a few Os's as virtual machines including various Windows OS's. I also loaded the free SUSE 10 linux OS. Getting these machines speaking to each other was excellent practice.

OK so below I've done a bit of a brain dump on what came up. I've tried to remember the keyword of the question, then put a ":", and then the keyword in the answer. This was pretty much enough to pick out the correct answer from the choices. Hope this is useful & good luck!


FDDI : 100Mbps
100-base-TX : 2pairs of wires
Unable to ping : misconfigured router
RAID1 : disk mirroring
RAID0 : requires 2 disks
98 computer : use nbtstat to diagnose
DHCP : provide both IP and DNS server addresses
Wireless : external antennas
Wireless : omnidirectional antennas
New Netware server : 'NWLink client' on Microsoft machines to interact with NetWare Server
make new connection : My Network Places, r-click, properties, make new connection
Firewall : "perimeter security"
VLAN : broadcast domain
VPN : uses PPTP
intranets : internal on the network
extranets : accessible to certain people from outside
Kerberos : software must be installed on client machines
LAN : requires IP & subnet mask
identify a correct IPv4 address : 245:38:0:23
MAC address : physical address, 48 bit, bytes 1-3 as OUI
traceroute : identifying output
name resolution : nslookup and dig, port 53
can ping, can't get there by name
i) DHCP server giving out wrong DNS server info
ii) block on port 53
which of the following doesn't use a modem : cable, PSTN, dsl, T1 (T1)
laptop internal modem : uses RJ-11
relay denied sending mail : smtp server on new ISP dsl account
which tool used initially for workstation unable to access network : ipconfig
which tool when you've got smtp IP but want to verify name : nslookup
Bridge and switch : layer 2
router : layer 3 therefore doesn't pass MAC broadcasts.


Obviously you need to know;

Port numbers
Cat 3, 5, 5e, 6 speeds etc
Devices and layers of OSI model
...because there'll of course be basic questions on these.

However, I wasn't tested on;

Clustering
Protocol structure
ATM / frame relay
Switches for ping etc.
No subnetting questions (though I guess I got lucky)

OK bye for now!

 

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Welcome aboard, great first post. Thanks

 

Thanks for the post.... although having the brain dump in the form of question : answer from the actual exam may be slighly in breach of exam conditions, i dunno what u guys think??

Just thought i'd mention it....!

 

no, Jazzy's post is fine Matt. He has condensed what he feels candidates should know for the N+ exam. We couldn't keep a post that had quoted actual questions...

 

Congrats on the pass!